LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON, 35 



There was a dignity and unconscious charm even in his business 

 letters that one associates with another generation, the simplest 

 replj' communicating the touch oi: a rare and genial personality. 



Until they were nine and ten years of age Buckton taught his 

 own children in various subjects, from grammar and languages to 

 Euclid, drawing, and physiology. He had an unusual gift of expo- 

 sition, and was ever ready to share his knowledge with others. His 

 humility and simplicity made him one to be easily approached, 

 and he gave often his tools and specimens to small boys who 

 showed an interest in natural history. The story is still told of 

 the stonemason who stopped him in his pony-carriage in the 

 village street, to ask the cause of the colours in the rainbow. One 

 writes: " None who ever met him could fail to be struck with his 

 kindly courtesy, his intense vitality, his wide range of knowledge, 

 and his unflagging interest in every topic affecting mankind." In 

 spite of his physical disabilities he travelled in Italy, France, and 

 elsewhere, ascended Vesuvius, saw the Commune in Paris, and 

 climbed the barricades, his great will-power enabling him to 

 surmount difficulties that would have daunted many. 



The visits to the observatory, which was built in his garden 

 some way from the house, were abandoned after a serious accident 

 which befel him in the autumn of 1882, when he overbalanced 

 himself in reaching the long focus of a Newtonian. He lay with a 

 double-fractured leg for some hours before he was found ; but his 

 recovery, though slow, was complete. 



In politics a Conservative, he interested himself in all sorts of 

 public matters, acting as treasurer and chairman on various local 

 bodies. He was a moderate Churchman with broad sympathies, 

 and gave liberally to Church and schools. Among his large circle 

 of friends he numbered many of eminence, among them Tyndall 

 and Tennyson, of whom he saw a good deal. "Though sometimes 

 swift and uncompromising in his judgments, and of a quick temper, 

 he Avas withal of a significant self-control, especially as regards his 

 physical difficulties. Those most intimately associated with him 

 have no single remembrance of moodiness or murmuring. Bather 

 is their recollection, when some unexpected hindrance pi*esented 

 itself, of a lightly sad, resigned, half-humorous reference to his 

 disability, a reference not easily forgotten by those who heard it." 

 One has said that the most striking thing about him was his 

 " magnificent calm." He kept his powers to the last. The fine 

 and picturesque bust exhibited of him by R. Hope-Pinker in the 

 Academy of 1904, showed how little age had impaired his clear 

 intellect and vif^our. He was finishing some water-colour 

 sketches of Norway within a few weeks of his death. The end 

 was the natural end of old age. After three weeks' suffering and 

 illness following a chill, conscious to the last, his spirit passed 

 peacefully, on the niglit of [September 25th, 1905, surrounded by 

 his wite and his children. 



" Truly a devoted, spiritual, knightlv nature,'" writes the present 



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